The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free.
Say good-bye to that jumble of remotes once and for all.
The Harmony Elite is the most powerful and intuitive remove for the home entertainment and home control! The Harmony remote controls let you combine your old remotes into one advanced universal remote control that works with more than 270,000 devices from more than 6,000 brands. You can customize up to 50 favorite channels. It can control devices according to schedules or in response to sensors. It’s a true “smart” remote!
About the Logitech Harmony Elite Universal Remote System:
- Harmony Elite + Amazon Alexa — control your entire home entertainment experience with just your voice.
- With Harmony Elite and Amazon Alexa, you can enjoy easy, hands-free control of all the things you love. Turn on your TV, change channels or turn up the volume, fire up a playlist or set the mood for movie night… your voice makes it all work, just like magic.
- Harmony Elite and Alexa let you start your favorite activities no matter what they are. Start an Activity like “Sports Night” to turn on ESPN, dim the lights and even crank up the subwoofer to make it feel like you’re practically at the game. When it’s time to switch gears and turn on “Date Night”, just say the word.
- Harmony Elite unifies control of your expanding universe of home entertainment and smart home devices into one powerful yet effortless experience. Sleekly designed and featuring a color touchscreen with motion-sensing backlit keys, and one-touch automation, Harmony Elite makes universal home control intuitively magical. Leave the chaos of multiple apps and remotes behind, and let peace reign supreme.
- Harmony Elite works with over 270,000 entertainment and smart home devices so you can enjoy single-touch control with your favorite brands, right out of the box. From your TV, cable and gaming console, to your AV receiver and Roku® media player—all the way to your smart lights, locks, thermostats, even your Alexa—Harmony Elite proudly works with just about everything.
The Hub:
The Remote:
My Thoughts:
The Harmony Elite comes with a separate wi-fi hub and two wired IR transmitters that can be positioned in different places. This mostly eliminates the problem of devices not turning on-or off as programmed. The transmitters are small and they are dark colored, so you do not notice them unless you are close to the equipment.
I like that the remote has a sensor in it that when you pick it up, the buttons and screen will light up. It does use extra battery juice, but I like being able to see the remote!
Another great feature is when you’re setting up a new device, the software can search for devices that it can control over your network or bluetooth. It actually finds them automatically and adds them from a list of found devices rather than needing to type each one in.
I am not a tech wizard so I enlisted the help of my son to set it up. Even with his tech skills, it took us awhile to program just the TV and Roku. You need all the devices in the same room to actually set everything up. It got tricky with the wifi when we tried to set up the Wii U gaming system. We actually decided to work on that a different day. It took a while to fine tune some of the settings (push button commands, etc.) and we are still making some occasional adjustments. Lots of patience is required to get things right, buy overall, when it’s all set up, it will be worth it!
